Take some freaking responsibility

Enough! Enough of all the pussyfooting, slippery tongue-sliding circumlocution. Enough of the fall backs to culture, ancestry, age, wisdom, the struggle, the party and the legacy of apartheid. Enough of the misuse of taxpayers’ money. Enough of the failure to speak when appropriate and necessary and enough of the propensity and frequency with which inappropriate, inarticulate and best-left-unsaid comments are made. Enough of the failure to declare assets transparently and enough of the chommie-appointing, corruption-loving, tender-sharing money grabbing. Enough of the unwillingness to provide a safe space for women, homosexual people, foreigners, and HIV-positive people. Enough of the inaction.

When will the elected government act as the representatives they are supposed to be? Never mind being representatives of their voting population, or South Africans, but as actual representatives of a successful, transparent and free society? When will the electorate who voted for the ANC government, and the members of the ANC party who actually still have a backbone (those whose backbones have become puppet-strings in the throes of absolute power are already too far gone) stop sucking up, brown nosing and generally being too power-fearing to comment and criticise a bad job when they see one? Or perhaps it is impossible to see a bad job when there is in fact very little work being done at all.

New legislation granting rights for people and marginalised groups feels like a treat left just outside the cage. We are supposed to look at it and feel pride in what we have been given. We begin to locate our failure to live in a country where we become economically empowered rather than enriched with ourselves.

It is frustrating to be so full of love and hope for a future in South Africa at the moment because it feels like it taunts me. I am within the cage of a country locked in a cage of public inaction and I don’t have the key. The people with the keys are safely seated in luxury hotel rooms, smart cars, lathered in their bubble baths made of oil, money and the blood, sweat and tears of the working public.

The cage of fear of criticising government traps many people. It misshapes their mind in a way that even Orwell could not have anticipated. For it requires no methods or machines of torture. It requires far less. It requires that the majority remain inactive, apathetic and bathed in the belief that the world outside does not affect them, and more so that they can’t affect it.

So enough of the government’s half-eaten sweets of success casually thrown to the masses to allow them a brief taste. Enough of their pitiful efforts to justify their glutton-like lifestyles. Enough of the fear that we cannot criticise. Enough of people who don’t want to act because it ruins their gym routines, their Saturday afternoons or the linings of their latest and most stylish wallet.

Change is inevitable, like death and taxes (well for most people). It requires that we do things and act to make the change the way we want to. It’s as easy as giving an hour of your time for the greater good or opening your mouth to speak out about injustice.

I hope that the government knows that the history books will not be rewritten and their failures will speak more loudly than their successes if they do nothing to remedy them.

We must all take responsibility for building a better South Africa.